This Monday, the Government of Colombia and the ELN resumed the peace talks that had been paralyzed since 2019, after the failure of the Iván Duque Administration in the negotiations. With this new round of talks, the government of the leftist Gustavo Petro tries to move towards its policy of “total peace” for all the territories that continue to be affected by the internal conflict in Colombia.
Colombia could be a little closer to ending its almost 60 years of internal conflict. This Monday, the Government of Gustavo Petro and the ELN guerrilla resumed peace talks in Caracas, Venezuela.
It is the beginning of the ambitious “total peace” policy, promoted by the left-wing Executive that aspires to complete the negotiations that were canceled in 2019 due to disagreements between the Executive of Iván Duque and the guerrillas.
In a joint declaration, the parties agreed to “resume with full political and ethical will the process of political dialogue”, understood as a claim “of the rural and urban territories that suffer from violence and exclusion.”
At the head of the Colombian Government delegation, Otty Patiño, and that of the ELN guerrilla, alias ‘Pablo Beltrán’, who shook hands in a hotel on Cerro Ávila, on the outskirts of the Venezuelan capital.
“We cannot see ourselves as enemies, the work we have is reconciliation (…) We hope not to fail in these expectations of change,” Beltrán said.
The choice of the Colombian president to lead the negotiations was not accidental, Patiño is a former M-19 guerrilla. -just like Petro himself-. In 1991, the politician participated in the Constituent Assembly that managed to carry out a peace agreement that demobilized guerrillas like the M-19 itself. Therefore, he understands how these types of negotiations work.
“We are committed to talks with an organization that also wants peace (…) We are going to reach a safe harbor… to a real peace,” Patiño said from the Humboldt Hotel.
This is the first round of talks in Venezuela, one of the host countries along with Cuba and Norway, which will take turns as the venue for the talks. This first round is expected to end in mid-December.
The key points of the joint declaration
This peace process is not new, it comes from the Administration of Juan Manuel Santos, and began in 2017 in Ecuador. He then went to Cuba, until he was suspended in 2019 by Santos’s successor, Iván Duque, after accusing the ELN of refusing to “cease hostilities” and killing more than twenty policemen in an attack.
This difficulty is part of the importance of these dialogues, in a conflict that is still active in some rural areas of the country, which would benefit from an eventual agreement.
The first great commitment that the two parties have established is “to resume the peace dialogue with full political and ethical will.” That is to say, with no ulterior motives of sabotaging the conversations and with total predisposition.
Secondly, they have promised to build this peace through a “fair democracy” and with the participation of sectors that have been historically marginalized and abandoned by the State. The intention is for Colombian society to actively participate in the process.
Another of the objectives of these tables is to achieve a lasting “peace”, which transcends changes of government in the country, and which integrates respect for human rights. H H. throughout the territory. Very ambitious objectives, according to various experts, which will require time and dedication.
The support of the international community
There are many countries that have seen the Colombian conflict from outside and have tried to mediate in it. As former and current guarantor, Venezuela, assured that “it will spare no effort” in support of the dialogue between Colombia and the ELN.
“They have sat down to negotiate a peace agreement, and from Venezuela we tell them, with all our people, all the support of the people of Venezuela for the peace negotiations,” said Nicolás Maduro, president of Venezuela, in this regard.
But the neighboring country was not the only one that claimed to have hope in the process. The special representative of the UN Secretary General in Colombia, Carlos Ruiz Massieu, also celebrated the rapprochement between the two parties on Monday.
I welcome the restart of negotiations between the Government of Colombia and the ELN in Caracas. I reiterate the support of the Secretary General @antonioguterres to this process and I call on the parties and Colombian society to take advantage of this historic opportunity and deepen peace in🇨🇴 pic.twitter.com/vAYCwPM3gg
— Carlos Ruiz Massieu (@CGRuizMassieu) November 21, 2022
“I welcome the restart of negotiations between the Government of Colombia and the ELN in Caracas. I reiterate the support of the Secretary General, António Guterres, in this process and I call on the parties and Colombian society to take advantage of this historic opportunity and deepen peace in Colombia”, said Massieu through social networks.
And it is that, what the United Nations member called a “historic opportunity” could bring the reconciliation of the two parties closer.
According to the data revealed by the Truth Commission, the body in charge of clarifying what happened in the armed conflict, in which the ELN has been one of the main actors along with other guerrillas such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC, already demobilized); paramilitary groups, criminal gangs and the country’s Armed Forces, the nation recorded 450,664 homicides.
Of these crimes, paramilitary groups were responsible for the death of 205,028 victims, 45% of the total; guerrilla groups 27%, a total of 122,813 victims. Of the percentage attributed to the guerrillas, 4% (17,725 victims) died due to the responsibility of the ELN. Meanwhile, state agents were responsible for the death of 56,094 people, 12% of the total.
The total number of victims, including forced displacement, forced recruitment and of minors, kidnappings, rapes and other crimes that have been perpetrated over the decades in the South American country by the aforementioned actors, rises to more than eight million. of people.
With Reuters, EFE and local media
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